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CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This chapter contains some theories related to the study. The researcher
divided the chapter into three subheadings. The first section would present the
definition of reading, the importance of reading, activities in reading,
descriptive text, reading material, media in reading activity, brochure as a
media, and review of previous study.
A.
Definitions of Reading
Reading has several meanings, they are:
a. Reading is a fluent process of readers combining information from the
text and their own background knowledge to build the meaning. 1 It means
that reading is a skill to create meaning from a text or written
composition.
b. Reading is grasping meaning in that language through its written
composition.2
c. Reading is a process of meaning elaboration or thinking in relation to
written symbols.3 From this definition, it can be assumed that there are
two essential aspect of reading process; word recognition and
comprehension. Word recognition means the ability to pronounce and/or
1
Neil Anderson , Reading. in David Nunan, Practical English Language Teaching, New York, page
68.
2
Robert Lado, Language Testing, London, page 223.
3
Joanne P. Olson and Marta H. Diller, Learning to teach reading in the Elementary School, New York,
page 5.
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give meaning to a printed symbol; it means that reading is a meaningful
interpretation of printed or written verbal symbols. Reading involves
sensing, perceiving, meaning and reacting in a variety of ways.
Comprehension means the ability to understand and apply the material; it
is also a process of thinking, evaluating, judging, imagining, reasoning,
and problem solving.
From some definitions of reading above, the writer take one of them
which are relevant in her study. Here, the writer uses definition of reading is the
meaningful interpretation of printed or written verbal symbols.
B.
Importance of Reading
Reading awareness of reading process is very important for students, they
will be able to read in ways that are expected in school. In order to allow the
students to focus on the process of reading, the lexical and syntactic content of
the materials have been controlled. Many students have a conceptualization of
reading that can interfere with their ability to read well in English. Reading
aims to help students acquire an accurate understanding of what it means to
read in English. To accomplish this, the reading process in a direct manner, and
the various reading skills involves are presented as part of that process.
Reading is one important way to improve your general language skills in
English, because there are many advantages of reading, they are:
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-
Reading help you learn to think in English.
-
Reading can enlarge your English vocabulary.
-
Reading can help you improve your writing.
-
Reading may be a good way to practice your English if you live in a nonEnglish-speaking country.
-
Reading can help you prepare for study in an English-speaking country.
-
Reading is a good way to find out about new ideas, facts, and
experiences.4
C.
Activities in Reading
To make the reading activities efficient, effective, and independent, they
are divided into three steps in relation to classroom activities, i.e. pre-reading,
while-reading, and post-reading activity. What the students can do for each
reading activity may be varied according to the purpose of reading.
1. Pre-Reading Activity
Pre-reading activity is previewing before you read, it can make a big
difference in how well you understand what you read. The aim of previewing is
to find out what you are going to be read before you actually read. You preview
to get an idea of what you will find in the text. Then, the information can be
delivered into the brain, and your comprehension will be faster and better.
4
Beatrice S. Mikulecky and Linda Jeffries, More reading Power, Cambridge, page VI.
11
2. Whilst-Reading Activity
In this activity, the students try to identify the main idea of the text, then
find the detail in the text and also follow some sequences. So from this stage,
the students can understand the text if they can identify the topic and sequence
of sentence.
3. Post-Reading Activity
The goals of post-reading activity are:
a. To provide students with opportunity to assess their own
comprehension of the text in light of the purpose (s) for reading.
b. To extend and elaborate on ideas from the text.5
Also there are two approaches that can be applied in the process of
reading. The approaches are called bottom-up and top-down. In bottom up
processing, readers must first recognize a multiplicity of linguistic signal (such
as letters, morphemes, syllables, words, phrases, grammatical cares, discourse
markers) and use their linguistic data-processing mechanism to impose some
sort of order on this signals. The reader selects the signals that make some
sense, that cohere, that “mean” while top down processing, the readers draw on
5
M Arifuddin, The Implementation of Mind Mapping to Teach Reading Descriptive Text to The
Second Grade Students of MTs Nu Sidoarjo, Surabaya, page 8.
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their own intelligence and experience to understand a text. As the consequence,
top down is also called “strategy based” and bottom up is called “skills-based”.6
To teach reading, the teachers should combine top don processing with
bottom up processing because both processes are important for successful
teaching reading. In practice, a reader continually shifts from one focus to
another, now adopting a top-down approach to predict probable meaning, then
moving to the bottom-up approach to check whether that is really what the
writer says (Nuttal in Brown 1994:299).
According to Herbart in the implementation of teaching reading
includes three stages of learning, namely:
1. Apersepsi; before starting the new material, students are given a warm-up
with material that has been presented at previous meetings. It aims to
provide heating and prepare students to continue the learning with new
material.
2. New materials, finished apersepsi teacher provides new material that has
been prepared before.
3. Repetition, new material is repeated until the students understand it. 7
6
Douglas Brown, Teaching by Principles an alternative approach to language pedagogy, San
(Francisco state university, 1994), page.298
7
Henry Guntur tarigan, Strategi Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Bahasa, (Bandung: Angkasa,
1993), page.199
13
In short, we can say that the use of teaching strategies applied by
teachers in the Reading process and the influence of these teaching
strategies on Instrumental English Students are very important, in this way
teachers can explain how students perceive, filter, store, and recall
information,
in
relation
to
a
second
language.
At the same time,
teachers can advice the best strategy for students in order to improve their
reading process.
D.
Descriptive Text
Based on English Curriculum for Junior high School, descriptive text is
defined as a text which describes something, someone, or place in details.
Descriptive text tries to give description what something is like.8 Moreover, a
person, a place, a thing, even an idea or state of mind, can be made vividly
through description.
The components of descriptive text itself are divided into two terms. They
are schematics structure (generic structure) and language features. The generic
structure itself is divided into two main components, those are:
1. Subject identification; identification of someone, something, or place
which going to describe.
8
Ken Hyland. Teaching and Researching Writing, page 73
14
2. Description; describe the characteristic of someone, something, or
place, for instance its material, its color, its size, its appearance, its
preference, etc.
The language features is a consequence of communicative purpose of
text.9 The language features of descriptive text focused on describing a certain
things, namely:
1. Certain Nouns. For example: teacher, my cat, cottage, etc.
2. Relating verb to give information about subject. For example: My
father is very kind.
3. Action Verb. For example: My dog bites my shoes.
4. Thinking verb and feeling verbs to express writers. Personal point of
view about the subject. For example: I think he is a good guy.
5. Detailed Noun phrase to give detail information about the subject. For
example: it has a large open rowboat, etc.
6. Adjectives which is describing, numbering, classifying. For example:
sharp white fangs, two strong legs, etc.
7. Adverbial to give additional information about the subject‟s
characteristics. For example: at the three houses.
8. Simple Present Tenses
9. Figurative speech such as simile, Metaphor. For example: Lady is
white as chalk.
9
Helena I.R Agustin. English Crriculum in a Nutshell, unpublish paper, page42.
15
E.
Reading materials
Considering one of the principles of teaching reading that students need
to be engaged with what they are reading, it deals how important the reading
material is. Interesting topic or material is needed to be created for the students
by the teachers to get them engaged from what they read. Thus, the choice of a
material is a big decision for the teacher; because it provides sources language
input and exploits those sources in ways which maximize likelihood of intake.10
In other words, materials are designed for the supply of information and
experience of the language to promote language learning. What is more, the
teacher‟s use of materials will influence the learning outcomes more than
anything else in the classroom.11
Materials naturally can be anything which is used by teachers or learners
to facilitate the learning of a language in order to increase learners‟ knowledge
and/or experience of the language.12
Unfortunately, the term „language-
learning materials‟ is mostly associated with the use of commercial materials,
particularly course book. There are some reasons why commercial materials are
not always appropriate to be used in the classroom. They are:
10
Brian Tomlinson, Materials Development in Language Teaching, Cambridge, page 2.
Eleanor Wall Thonis, Teaching Reading to Non-English Speakers, 193.
12
Brian Tomlinson, Materials Development in Language Teaching, Cambridge, page 2.
11
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a.
There is the possible problem of ideological conflict.13 Each text is
usually based on the author‟s ideas about teaching. For example, some text
writers believe students should memorize words and grammar rules before
they practice reading, while the teacher thinks lots of practice in meaningful
context is significantly more important. Because of the prescribed text, the
teacher then must accept the beliefs of the author. This conflict can cause
negative consequences in the teaching and learning process.
b.
One of the main concerns is that any given course book will be
incapable of catering for the diversity of needs which exist in most language
classroom.14 It means that the topic of the text should be appropriate with the
students‟ need. Moreover, the students should use their background
knowledge to comprehend the text. Indeed, commercially made textbooks are
prepared for a wide audience, one that is culturally diverse and geographically
dissimilar.15
Basically, the materials uses in the classroom are created by four groups of
people that include publishing companies, government agencies, and
curriculum development teams at the school level and classroom teachers.16
The teacher who teaches in a private language school definitely uses materials
commercially published by some companies. While the teacher who teaches in
13
J.G. Gebhard, Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language, Ann Arbor: The University of
Michigan Press, page 99.
14
David Nunan, Language Teaching Methodology: A textbook for teachers, 209.
15
J.G. Gebhard, Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language, Ann Arbor: The University of
Michigan Press, page 100.
16
Ibid, 89.
17
a public school uses materials produced or selected by a government education
agency or committee that is also responsible for designing the curriculum for
the language program, or even by publishing company. Thus, the classroom
teacher who is not satisfied with the text, teacher may adapt the text, design the
entire text with materials created by herself, or creatively search texts that can
fulfill and appropriate the students‟ needs.
F.
Media in Reading Activity
The use of media in the classroom has been proved through some
research studies some advantages. The main advantages of using media in the
classroom include:
a. Having a positive effect on students‟ motivation17, it means media are
significant since it increases students‟ motivation for learning, makes the
students is exposed to the „real‟ language.
b. Giving authentic cultural information.
c. Exposing students to real language.
d. Relating more closely to students‟ needs.
e. Supporting a more creative approach to teaching.
In addition, there are some factors worth taking into consideration when
choosing media for the classroom. They include as follows:
17
W. Guariento and Morlay J, Text and Task Authenticity in the EFL Classroom in ELT Journal, 347353.
18
1. Suitability of content; this concerns that the text should interest the
students, should be relevant to the students‟ need, and should represent
the type of material that the students will use outside the classroom.
2. Exploitability; this refers to whether the text can be exploited for teaching
purposes, for what purpose the text should be exploited, and what
skills/strategies the text exploited can developed.
3. Readability; it relates to whether the text is too easy or difficult for the
students and structurally too demanding or complex, how much new
vocabulary it contains and how it relevance is.
G.
Brochure as a media
Brochure is one of advertisement, and advertising is very common in this
modern era. We recognize that commercial and advertisements are everywhere
on TV and radios, in newspaper and magazines, on billboards and in mailboxes,
and now on internet as well. Brochure is designed to inform, persuade, provoke,
or motivate.
There are two types of brochure based on its content and objectives. They
are informational brochure which informs, educates or persuades, and how
brochure will explain or tell the instruction.
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H.
Review of Previous Study
In doing research, reviewing of previous study is crucial thing, in order to
avoid replications and show differences among other studies. The writer tries to
review a previous study which is in line with the materials in teaching reading.
The study was done by Novita Eka Indah Suryani. The title is ”The Use Hotel
Brochure as an Authentic Material in Teaching Reading Descriptive Text to
Tenth Grade Students”, and its research problems are (1) what hotel brochures
are used for supplementary reading materials in the teaching reading descriptive
text to tenth grade students; (2) how is the implementation of hotel brochures
supplementary reading material carried out; (3) how is the students
achievement evaluated. In her study, Novita Eka Indah Suryani conducted a
descriptive qualitative research which used self report and daily assessment,
and concluded that the hotel brochures which were implemented in the teaching
of reading gave some positive effects, such as (1) increasing the students‟
knowledge about current issues and open their mind of outside world, (2)
activating the students to answer questions related to a text, and (3) improving
the students reading ability.18
Another study is written by Lilik Suhartatik, entitled,”Using Authentic
Advertisement in Teaching Writing Hortatory Exposition Text to the eleventh
grade students of SMAN 11 Surabaya”, and its research problems are (1) How
18
Novita Eka Indah Suryani, The Use of Hotel Brochures as an Authentic Material in Teaching
Reading Descriptive Text to tenth grade students, unpublished Unesa, 2010.
20
is the implementation of authentic advertisement in teaching writing hortatory
exposition text to the eleventh grade students of SMAN 11 Surabaya, (2) How
is the students writing after the implementation of authentic advertisement in
teaching writing hortatory exposition text to the eleventh grade students of
SMAN 11 Surabaya, (3) How are the students responses toward the use of
authentic advertisement in teaching hortatory exposition text to the eleventh
grade students of SMAN 11 Surabaya. In her study, Lilik Suhartatik conducted
a descriptive qualitative research which also used self report and daily
assessment, and concluded that Using Authentic Advertisement which were
implemented in the Teaching Writing Hortatory Exposition Text have positive
effect, that is printed advertisements successfully help the students‟ difficulties
in writing exposition text.
This thesis will be different with previous two theses because the
researcher conducts this study in different subject and topic. The writer focuses
on the use brochures as a media in teaching reading descriptive text to the eight
grade students of SMP Bilingual Terpadu Krian. The research question is
conducting on how students‟ responses on the use of brochure in teaching
reading descriptive text.
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